The present invention relates to an integral tamper evident inner seal (further also called ‘inner seal’) opening means, placed within a protective threaded plastic closure cap and threaded sport closure caps for various types of rigid and semi rigid containers (example bottles, jars, cans, packaging with a round or cylindrical opening and the like to enable the user to open in an easy and convenient way a tamper evident inner seal, connecting to and covering the mouth opening of the container, and whereby the inner seal itself provide additional means in preventing premature opening of the container.
Nowadays tamper evident inner seals are widely used in food and beverage industry, pharmaceutical, chemical industry, agricultural products, herbicides/pesticides, petro-chemical products, edible oils, lubricating oils, cosmetics and personal care products. This inner seal has a multiple function; a) hermetically closing off the container neck, thereby preventing deterioration of the content by oxidation or contamination and b) provide tamper evidence, that the bottle or container has not been previously opened. This inner seal is usually enclosed by a protective closure cap, screwed or pressed onto the container neck or held within a sport closure cap. The seal assures product integrity and prevents any changes or leakage. It increases the shelf life of container products by keeping the contents free from oxidation and contamination. Tamper evident seals are considered to be safe and hygienic.
Usually a tamper evident inner seal consists of a multi-layer sheet material, such as laminate of paper, polymeric film and/or aluminum foil securely leak and airtight attached to the rim of the mouth opening of the container. In order to get access to the product inside the container, the protective closure, such as a simple plastic screw cap, first needs to be unscrewed from the container neck, after which the tamper evident seal can be manually peeled off or punctured by a finger or sharp object. However, when a tamper evident inner seal is used together with sport closures (example; push pull cap, flip/twist top closure, novel sport closures with or without valve systems, pour spout closures and the like), the sport closure first needs to be unscrewed from the container neck to manually remove and then separately dispose of the inner seal and then screwed back onto the container before the product can be consumed. The prior art patents described herein offer various ways of removing the tamper evident inner seal from the mouth opening of the container.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,634,013 to Bar-Kokhba, shows that the removal of the inner seal can be cumbersome and discloses a means to open this seal by a single cutting devise connected to the cap and also a means that allows rotation of the cap less than 360 degrees. The seal remains hanging in the opening of the bottle, unless manually removed. The cutting devise can be on top or within the cap, thereby cutting a “C” type opening in the inner seal, but with a rotation limit of less than 360 degrees. For this cap, a tamper evident band is required that needs to be removed, before the cap can be further screwed down onto the bottleneck. The method thus described has two disadvantages namely: (1) a tamper evident band needs to be removed before cutting open the inner seal (2) the inner seal either hangs in the mouth opening of the container, or needs to be manually removed. In that case two plastic parts need to be separately disposed. For certain applications this solution may not be suitable where direct skin contact with the product in the container may not be advisable.
Other patent disclosures have been published to remove the inner seal, in a similar way such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,090,582 to Art et al. The means described is similar to the patent as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,634,013 to Bar-Kokhba but with provisions of a ramp to disengage the cutting means from the foil, leaving a “C” type opening in the seal, in such away that the seal will not detach completely. This means is useful but manual removal of the seal as well as a tear away tap will be still required, having the same disadvantages as mentioned in the patent to Bar-Kokhba.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,797,506 to Lehmkuhl et al. discloses a means to open the seal by providing a little nub extending from the upper wall of a screwed-on closure cap. Unscrewing this cap and placing the cap upside down on the bottleneck can open the seal, allowing access to the liquid for consumption. Although there is no need for provisions to cut the seal open for less than 360 degrees, the seal remains hanging in the bottle opening unless manually removed.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,832,580 to Jackman, discloses a tamper evident container closure seal with an integral pull opener. The seal is opened by forcing a finger into the weaker area of the seal void configuration. The broken open center portion of the seal then forms a pull-tab that can be partially connected, which allows the pull-tab to be lifted back out and pulled from the container. This means of seal removal requires manual actions having similar issues mentioned above.
The afore described methods of tamper evident seal removal may be adequate for containers with a protective screw cap, but they pose hygienic and environmental issues, as the inner seal still needs to be removed by hand and disposed separately. Furthermore, those methods cannot be used for more aggressive products inside the container, such as certain type of chemical agents or medicine, where for safety reasons manual contact is not recommended.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,702,015 to Giles adds a pull-tab to the inner closure seal as a way of removal. In this case the seal can be removed without touching the contents of the container but still needs to be manually removed and disposed separately.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,581,605 to Taylor describes a device for removal and disposal of a membrane seal from a plastic bottle by using an annular cutting member and a piercing and extracting member within a separate cap that is placed onto the bottle neck, after the protective cap has been removed. This solution requires a separate cap attached to the closure cap and an extra piercing means.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,709,311 to Butler et al, describes a method and apparatus for removing and storing a container seal on the upper side of a closure seal. In order to remove the seal, the closure cap needs to be removed, turned over and rotated before the seal removing and storing device can be applied.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,942,284 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,386,385 to Amanat et al.; Apparatus for removing tamper-evident seals from containers; provides means to remove a tamper evident seal from a container mouth using a central perforating means that retains the cut out portion of the seal within the cap, preventing it from falling into the container. This centrally perforator means cannot be applied for sport closure caps, as described in the present invention later on. Additionally the cap needs to be turned over to apply the seal removal means.
Other inventions describe various means to remove the tamper evident seal either manually after removal of the closure cap or by retaining the seal by provisions on the outer top side of the closure cap or provide separate seal detaching means, but none address the problems of opening or removing the seal when applied to sport closure caps, without removing a tamper evident band on the outside of the cap first.
The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the disclosed state of the art techniques by providing a plurality of protrusions with cutting means that can be easily incorporated in the design of the standard threaded closure cap and alternative sport closures, while additional provisions are foreseen as part of the inner seal itself, that prevent the engagement of these cutting means prematurely with the seal. In the case of the alternative sport closures used for single-serve beverage containers together with a tamper evident inner seal, the sport closure cap does not need to be unscrewed from the container to remove or open the tamper evident inner seal for getting access to the product inside, while no external tamper evident band needs to be removed and disposed of.